You make a good point, and people who would scold others for not giving money directly to the homeless would do well to learn that. Part of the problem with deinstitutionalization as a solution for all of the abuses and problems in the mental health system in America is that there are groups of people who, despite your best efforts and intent, will never be able to live on their own.

For the large part, the homeless are the lost mentally ill population. These are people who are "content" to be in their state. They don't like feeling "normal". They self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. They will never be compliant or complacent in their treatment unless they are observed.

SilentStrider:Some seriously creepy stuff in there. Even the daylight pictures are creepy.

Yeah, but at least they are empty. I've seen "photo essays" from the bad old days, and they are truly horrifying. Even today's allegedly modern and humane confinement facilities are little more than jails.

Anyone who calls America a "Christian nation" needs to explain what we do to the least among us.

Meatybrain:SilentStrider: Some seriously creepy stuff in there. Even the daylight pictures are creepy.

Yeah, but at least they are empty. I've seen "photo essays" from the bad old days, and they are truly horrifying. Even today's allegedly modern and humane confinement facilities are little more than jails.

Anyone who calls America a "Christian nation" needs to explain what we do to the least among us.

you know, in retrospect, getting icy-hot on my scrotum wasn't all that terrible of an experience.

oh sure, everyone goes on about how agonizing it is, but really, it felt pretty mild to me.

the initial dread when i realized what i'd done was probably the worst. that feeling of 'oh lord, here it comes...' was pretty severe.

but then it hit me... a few minutes of graceful cooling, peaking at just below a felt temperature that would delicately wrinkle the skin.

and then came warmth. not the flaming heat of a fire, or even an uncomfortable heat. no, this heat was the soothing heat of a perfectly hot bath. soothing and comforting.

after a few minutes the heat went away. i shrugged to myself and pulled on my underwear, thinking that that was simply that, and all of the hype was simply that.

that's when it came over me. a feeling of incomparable briskness. a feeling not unlike gently but firmly teabagging a stream of glacier meltwater in iceland on a crisp fall morning.

my first instinct was to reach in and cup myself, hoping to warm my now-chilled flesh and restore a more normal sensation, but fear stopped me. fear that my testicles would snap off, much as the limb of the T-1000 snapped off after he'd been super-cooled by liquid nitrogen.

that fear stayed my hand.

in ten minutes, the cold had passed, and i felt that things were alright with the world.

BronyMedic:MaudlinMutantMollusk: Or just allow them to wander the streets homeless/progress

You make a good point, and people who would scold others for not giving money directly to the homeless would do well to learn that. Part of the problem with deinstitutionalization as a solution for all of the abuses and problems in the mental health system in America is that there are groups of people who, despite your best efforts and intent, will never be able to live on their own.

For the large part, the homeless are the lost mentally ill population. These are people who are "content" to be in their state. They don't like feeling "normal". They self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. They will never be compliant or complacent in their treatment unless they are observed.

Over One Fifth, to One Fourth of all "homeless" are mentally ill.

High rates of Domestic Violence, Self-Medication with Substance Abuse, depression, and poverty associated with the aforementioned risk factors are the reasons why the homeless "stay" homeless.

This. Many times over. Institutionalization was in many ways evil, but so is turning the mentally ill out into the streets, and into shelters that do not have the staff trained to take care of them.

Meatybrain:SilentStrider: Some seriously creepy stuff in there. Even the daylight pictures are creepy.

Yeah, but at least they are empty. I've seen "photo essays" from the bad old days, and they are truly horrifying. Even today's allegedly modern and humane confinement facilities are little more than jails.

Anyone who calls America a "Christian nation" needs to explain what we do to the least among us.

I've been in both. You can put me in a locked ward any day of the week. Unless it's Atascadero, which IS a prison.

Btw...I teach in Manteno, home of the former Manteno State Hospital. All that writing on the walls and tubs was some photographer's photo essay project. Manteno was big in it's heyday...8,200 patients. Do a google search and you'll find some interesting stuff.